University College Dublin, Ireland, September 22, 2010

Proposals by August 1, 2010

Confirmed Plenary Speakers include Professor Tom Inglis, UCD School of Sociology and Professor Sean O Riain, Sociology Department, NUI Maynooth

With recent events, the import of globalisation has come into focus. Issues surrounding Ireland’s dependence on processes of globalisation press us to reconsider its relationship with the United States in the ‘post-globalisation’ moment. This conference provides an opportunity for rethinking globalisation within the context of Ireland’s relationship with the United States.

Questions to be addressed may include:

• Is globalisation still relevant to Ireland’s relationship with the United States?
• Is globalisation synonymous with Americanization?
• Has the era of globalisation reconstituted Irish identity in relation to the U.S.?
• What is the relation of the Irish diaspora to processes of globalisation?
• What paradigms of Irish-US economic and political relations are emerging from a post-globalised Ireland?
• How has Irish culture represented or reflected shifting relations with the U.S.?

We welcome proposals that offer innovative perspectives on shifts in political, economic and cultural paradigms. We encourage multi- and interdisciplinary discussions and are particularly interested in receiving papers from the following areas:

• American Studies
• Irish Studies
• Business Studies
• History
• Media & Cultural Studies
• Politics & International Relations
• Sociology

300-word proposals should be emailed to postglobal.paradigm@gmail.com no later than 1 August 2010. General enquiries can be directed at the conference organisers, Martin Russell, Geoff O’Connor and Julieann Galloway at the same address.

The conference is being organised with financial support from the Graduate School in Arts and Celtic Studies at University College Dublin.

About Prof. Tom Inglis, Plenary Speaker

Professor Tom Inglis will be presenting a paper entitled ‘Are the Irish different?’ at this conference. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Sociology at University College Dublin. He is the author of several books, including Global Ireland: Same Difference (2008) which examines how globalisation has influenced Irish culture over the last fifty years. He is a former President of the Sociological Association of Ireland and past editor of the Irish Journal of Sociology. He also served as co-director of the Identity, Diversity and Citizenship research project in the Geary Institute at UCD. His main areas of research are identity, cultural globalisation and secularisation.

About Prof. Sean O Riain, Plenary Speaker

Professor Sean O Riain is the Head of the Sociology Department at NUI Maynooth. He is interested in social change, particularly as it relates to the emergence of a knowledge economy and society. He is committed to a critical, scientific, empirical sociology that examines the politics of grand social changes but is ethnographically grounded and publicly engaged. He is the author of several books including The Politics of High Tech Growth (2004). He also is a research associate and Chair of the Board of the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis.